This ‘expositio’ on Thebit Bencora’s De hiis que indigent expositione antequam legatur Almagesti (C.1.1) is preserved in the personal notebook of Johannes Borotin (1378-after 1458), who received his master of arts at the University of Prague in 1410, was for some time (at least in 1412) rector of the school of Zderaz in the outskirts of Prague, then, from 1413 onwards, professor in the faculty of arts at the University of Prague. In the colophon, Borotin says that he wrote (‘scripsit’) it on Sunday 20 November 1412 in Zderaz and that Johannes Andree Schindel began lecturing on the Almagest in Prague on the same day. Borotin was to attend these lectures later, in January and February 1413 (see C.1.14), and the present Expositio was meant, in all likelihood, as an introduction to them. The exact nature and authorship of this Expositio are, however, unclear. It may have consisted of lectures given by Schindel (so Burnett, 14; Lička, 269). At the same time, the colophon does not explicitly involve Schindel with the Expositio and even seems to imply that Schindel was in Prague when Borotin finished writing or copying it in Zderaz. Moreover, Borotin was mistaken about Schindel’s whereabouts on that day, for Schindel had begun lecturing on the Almagest over a week before, on 11 November 1412 (see C.1.14).

Text ‘(Prague, APH, O. I) Exposicio Thebiti Bencorath in precognicionibus Almagesti. Nota: Equator diei idem est quod equinoctialis circulus — tempore Sol redit ad suam (?) coniunccionem. De istis melius videbis circa theoricam planetarum et (?) practicabis si vis. Explicit exposicio Thebit precognicionum Almagesti anno domini 1412, feria prima sive die dominico 12^o kal. Decembris. Eodem die Magister Ioannes Andree, doctor medicine, incepit legere librum magnum Ptolomei Almagesti in Praga. Mitte, mi domine, auxilium de sancto et de Syon, tuere me ut perficere possim quod proposui, quia volo. Me Borotyn scripsit in Zderaz dum sibi vixit anno milleno quadringento duodeno, quo iam complebat quatuor triginta Decembres.’

Bibl. On Johannes Borotin, see P. Spunar, Repertorium auctorum Bohemorum provectum idearum post Universitatem Pragensem conditam illustrans, 2 vols, Wrocław-Warszawa, 1985-1995 [Studia Copernicana, XXV and XXXV], I, 140-145; C. Burnett, ‘Teaching the Science of the Stars in Prague University in the Early Fifteenth Century: Master Johannes Borotin’, Aither. Journal for the Study of Greek and Latin Philosophical Traditions 2 (2014), 9-50; L. Lička, ‘Studying and Discussing Optics at the Prague Faculty of Arts: Optical Topics and Authorities in Prague Quodlibets and John of Borotín’s Quaestio on Extramission’, in Studying the Arts in Late Medieval Bohemia: Production, Reception and Transmission of Knowledge, ed. O. Pavlíček, Turnhout, 2021, 251-303.

Modern ed. ---